


If We’re Only Here Once, I Want To Live With You

by Merixcil



Series: Advent Fics 2019 [8]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post-Canon, Queerplatonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:21:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26444089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merixcil/pseuds/Merixcil
Summary: Aziraphale wants to move to the country and Crowley debates joining him
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Advent Fics 2019 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1916806
Kudos: 3





	If We’re Only Here Once, I Want To Live With You

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: [Something I Need by Ben Haenow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si8UeJZ7LcI)  
> 

It wasn't that Crowley would ever have described himself as averse to the Idea, but equally, he wasn’t exactly anticipating it. Six months down the line he would find himself in a rather fetching set of blue and white striped swimming trunks and seasonally appropriate sunglasses eating an ice cream on the beach at the bottom of the cliffs in Fotherington, Dorset, and not be entirely able to connect the dots of how he came to be there. The only thing left to do, at this stage, was be to ascribe his decisions to the rather heady rush that came with the human holiday season. The heady rush could be ascribed to an over abundance of sugar and alcohol, both of which could be ascribed to the human predilection for consuming substances that alter their temperament far enough for perfect strangers to know that something is off. 

He still wasn't sure which side was responsible for that particular foible of the human condition. Perhaps, as with all the best bits of their makeup, the humans simply came up with it themselves. 

But the Idea, as it stood, was initially proposed by Aziraphale, over coffee in Philadelphia of all places - chosen for the occasion on account of it being the city of brotherly love. This was just three months after they had watched the Antichrist roundly defeat The Great Plan and the angel was still rather hopped up on the thrill of it all. Like a human child on sugar. 

“I’ve been thinking I’d like to get out of London.” Aziraphale said, holding out his cup for the waitress to fill and thanking her profusely when she did. Bottomless coffee was one of the few things that the two of them could agree that America had done right, which led to more than a few impromptu jaunts across the Atlantic to take advantage of the situation. 

What Aziraphale was turning a fairly intentional blind eye to, was that Crowley (who would insist on paying for these dates in full) was settling up with fake dollars. This blind eye was turned, on account of how the angel would always leave a large tip in legitimate money that more than covered the cost of two coffees and two portions of the sweetest thing on the menu. 

“You’re already out of London.” Crowley told him. 

“I mean more permanently.” Aziraphale said, and then took a bite of cheesecake large enough that he would be unable to reply to anything Crowley said for the next thirty seconds. 

It wasn’t an unprecedented suggestion. They had each moved around a lot in their execution of the Great Plan. But Crowley hadn’t even begun to consider where he would head to once he was done with the Big Smog. Now that the shackles were off, so to speak, and he could be a little more brazen with how he chose to deploy his free will, he felt like he was just getting started. 

Besides, they’d only been in London two, three hundred years at most. 

“We can get you another bookshop, if that’s the problem. A new flat, even, though I don’t mind if you want to take up permanent residence in the spare room. Though I suppose it wouldn’t be the spare room anymore if that were the case, it would be your room. Not that I mind, to be clear. I can’t say I’d mind if you wanted to keep the spare room and share mine - I’m sure my bed would look fantastic stretched out to a super king. Then we could still have friends over, if you wanted.”

Aziraphale’s face was the picture of alarm, struggling to chew his foot fast enough to reply before Crowley completely ran away with himself. “My dear, a bed big enough to share sounds delightful. But we don’t need to be in London to have one of those.”

“We don’t need to be out of London either.”

“Yes, but…” Aziraphale sighed, and carefully moved his coffee out of the way to allow him full room to lean in over the rather tiny table they were sharing. “All our existence, we have been chasing the heart of human civilisation, trying ourselves out here and there. But always, wherever we go, there have been so many people. I rather think, now that we are unemployed, so to speak, that it would be nice to try living somewhere with rather fewer people, so that we might see what we are when humanity isn’t looking.”

Crowley snorted. “I know what I am when humanity isn’t looking. And it’s a lot easier to wrap your head around that your true form, angel.”

“I do hope you will think about it, though.” Aziraphale continued. “I should like it very much if you were to come with me.”

Which really should have been the nail in Crowley’s proverbial coffin. What Aziraphale liked very much was rarely avoidable. He took a big gulp of his coffee, which was slightly burnt and bitter as a result, just the way he liked it. “I’ll think about it.”

“That’s all I ask. 

Fast forward to Christmas, and the two of them were still at Crowley’s London flat, the turkey they tried to roast between them, which had somehow managed to come out both rather too dry and delicious, had been picked over thoroughly, and the angel and the demon were drunk. 

“I love this time of year.” Crowley said, to his wine glass as much as to Aziraphale. “Everyone trying to find presents at the last minute, trying to work out of they should feel guilty for not going to church, all that War on Christmas nonsense. They work themselves into a right old state.”

“It’s so warm and lovely.” Aziraphale agreed. “And the food is just divine. I do hope we continue to do this together.”

It was decided that Aziraphale would take up a cottage on the south coast in the New Year, and despite a never ending parade of hints that he would be most welcome to come along too, Crowley had yet to commit to joining him. 

So Crowley ignored the implicit question. “D’you remember when he was born?”

“Who?”

“Jesus of Nazareth.”

“Oh yes. Horrible business, that poor girl in the stable. But I was under strict instructions not to interfere.”

“Same.”

“Really? I always thought that the unsanitary birth idea came from your side.”

“There are no sides.” Crowley retorted, for the first time in a while having to consider whether or not that was true. 

They didn’t bother with presents for each other. It seemed unnecessary when it was so easy for each of them to ensure that whatever they needed was ready and waiting for them as they needed it. But that hadn’t stopped an Aston Martin DB5 appearing on Crowley’s driveway that morning, or the crate of lost 1980s Grand Cru waiting on the side when Aziraphale came into the kitchen to make breakfast. Their relationship, like any other, was built on small things. But the big things didn’t half help. 

Aziraphale was curled up in his favourite armchair, which used to be Crowley’s favourite armchair until the angel had taken up sitting in it and it had slowly faded from black to tartan and grown worn and squidgy. His cheeks rosy from the wine and the top button of his corduroys undone to accommodate his overlarge dinner. He looked more human, and more divine than he had in years.

It seemed, much to his chagrin, that Crowley’s mind was about to be made up for him. Will, it seemed, no matter how hard it tried, was never entirely free.

Crowley stood up, swaying slightly under the weight of three whiskeys and a bottle entirely to himself of Aziraphale's dashing new wine. “I don’t want to leave London.”

Aziraphale’s face fell, the glow leaving his cheeks (and it had been a glow, a real one, like the Heavenly Host used to do). “I see.”

“I don’t want to leave.” Crowley said. “But I want to leave you less. So I’m coming with you.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale frowned, this information taking a second to percolate through his somewhat pickled mental state. “You’re coming?”

“I’m coming.” Crowley said, clear as day. Just to be absolutely sure it was what he wanted. As soon as he had given voice to the idea, it seemed impossible that he could ever want anything else.

“You’re coming!” Aziraphale lurched up and out of the chair, wrapping his arms around Crowley in a bone breaking hug. “My goodness. You’re coming!”

“I’m coming.” Crowley agreed, unable to so much as suggest that he not be squeezed to death between now and then. “Merry Christmas.”

**Author's Note:**

> This work was originally posted as part of a multi chaptered 'advent fics' fic that I'm trying to split up. If you think you've read it before, you probably have


End file.
